Silent Night
by Wanna Bet-the original
Summary: What was Alice's life like before she became a Cullen? Before she was a vampire? We all know the basics...but what about the details? Rated T for some violence and malicious intent.
1. Prologue: Darkness

**Hey guys! Know I haven't written in a while, but I have been so busy with school it's not even funny. And then I sprained my wrist, which made typing near impossible.**

**Don't expect much more on this story until mid-December. But I wanted to get this out here now.**

**_Twilight _is not mine...it is the immortal Stephenie Meyer's.**

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Blackness. Such blackness. I didn't think such darkness was fathomable. I didn't think it actually existed. If I didn't know my eyes were open, I would swear they were closed. My trembling hands reach to stroke my long brunette locks.

But they find nothing.

My hair is gone. I feel only the skin of my head.

I curl my knees up to my chest and hug them with both my arms, beginning to rock back and forth.

As I do this, I see a flash of something that stills my nervous movements. A man whispering my name in the darkness. Then a pale, blond man…just a flash of a face and I am back in the darkness, surrounded by nothing but the sound of my own haggard breathing.

I am alone. So utterly alone.

It is so unfair to be locked away.

I am not crazy. Sometimes I just…see things before they happen. Not all the time, and sometimes I am not right.

But my parents couldn't be seen to have a mentally unstable daughter. They had no choice but to lock me away.

So here I am, alone in the blackness with nothing but the rats and my visions to keep me company.

My name is Mary Alice Brandon…and according to the people of Biloxi, Mississippi…

I am dead.

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**Hopefully you all enjoyed that. I hope to write more as soon as I can manage. In the meantime, check out my other stories. I haven't abandoned the ones still in progress…just have taken a prolonged (and quite forced) vacation from them.**

**REVIEW THIS ONE!!! LET ME KNOW IF I SHOULD CONTINUE!**


	2. One: Why?

**DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN **_**TWILIGHT **_**ARE PROPERTY OF THE GREAT AND WONDERFUL STEPHENIE MEYER, AS IS THE OUTLINE OF THIS STORY. The specific storyline as well as any characters I have come up with are mine.**

**A/N: I have decided to compromise what you all seem to want. Hopefully you like it. Also, I don't know much about insane asylums or shock therapy…so I kinda made it up. Hope you don't mind…**

The light stung my eyes. I had been in the dark for so long. My eyes had adjusted to it. I had begun to be able to maneuver around my dark, small cell and make out the general shapes of the rats who were my roommates. I hoped it would not take another 3 days for me to get back to the progress I had made.

I couldn't move my wrists or my legs or my head. I was strapped to a metal chair, bonds made of leather straps chafing at my wrists and ankles as I tried not to move, unable to sit still in my discomfort. The strap on my head was different. It had probes on it. Probes that were attached to the skin of my head and forehead.

I was frightened, and unable to hide my trembling.

There was a doctor sitting at the table in front of me. He had glasses on and no hair on his head. He reminded me of my father.

"What is your name?" he asked.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. I closed it and swallowed.

"Mary Alice Brandon." I replied in a small, hoarse voice. I had not spoken in days. I hadn't made any noise since my first night in my cell when I cried for my parents, my sister and my life.

"How old are you?"

"I'll be 19 in three months."

"Why are you here?"

"My parents. My parents were embarrassed by me."

"Why is that?"

_It was a beautiful spring day. I was five years old, running through a field of wildflowers behind our house being chased by my loving mother. When my mother used to love me. She was so beautiful when she smiled. I wished I would be that beautiful one day. I was running toward the lake by our house when I caught my foot on a tree root that was above ground. I fell and scraped my knees, staining the pretty new pink dress my father had bought me the day before with mud and grass. I began to cry because my knee hurt and I feared my mother would be angry about my new dress._

_When she caught up to me, she sat down on the ground next to me and held me tight. She asked me why I was crying. I blubbered why to her. She chuckled softly and then placed her right hand to her mouth and then on my knee. _

"_All better" she whispered, kissing my hair. _

_I suddenly stopped crying as what I was seeing was no longer the field around me. I no longer heard the creek running to the lake on our property._

_I was holding my mother's hand. It was raining and Daddy was holding an umbrella over our head. We were all in black, in a graveyard, staring at a wooden box as it was lowered into the ground._

_Then I was back. Back in my mother's arms on the beautiful spring day. Our housekeeper, Mrs. Paige came running toward us. My mother brought me to my feet and we dusted ourselves off. _

"_This telegram just came for you Mrs. Brandon. I am afraid your mother passed away this morning."_

_I held my mother's hand while she cried. Three days later, it was raining in a graveyard where I stood holding my mother's hand, while Daddy held an umbrella over our head. I watched as they lowered the casket containing my grandmother's body into the ground, realizing I had seen this before, but not realizing what it meant for my future. _

"Why is that Mary Alice?"

"Sometimes I see things no one else can see."

"Things that haven't happened yet?"

"Yes."

As soon as I said my answer, a jolt of electricity ran from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, electrifying every nerve ending in my body. I couldn't help the scream that escaped my lips. It was agonizing. I was hyperventilating when the shock stopped and I tried my best to calm myself back down. I needed to be stronger than this. They couldn't be allowed to win. I tried to remember that day again, how happy I had been playing in the flowers with my mother.

But I couldn't remember it. It was gone. As if it had never happened.

I couldn't feel my hands or my feet. I was strapped to the chair and unable to move.

The doctor got up from his chair and walked toward where I was.

"Shh, Mary Alice. Everything will be all right." He wiped the tear from my face I hadn't even realized had formed. "I'll protect you." Then he smiled, maniacally as he hiked up my gown from around my knees.

**Poor Alice. **

**I hope you like the compromise I have come up with, of just having flashbacks of her life. I also hope you understand what is going on. In the 1920s, a lot of corruption went on in these institutions. So…yeah…**

**Think I went too far? Think it's good? I can't know unless you tell me, so what are you waiting for?**

**REVIEW!!!!**


	3. Two: Whispers in the Dark

**DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN **_**TWILIGHT **_**ARE PROPERTY OF THE GREAT AND WONDERFUL STEPHENIE MEYER, AS IS THE OUTLINE OF THIS STORY. The specific storyline as well as any characters I have come up with are mine.**

**A/N: I hope all of you who are of the Christian religion had a very joyous and happy Christmas. I hope all of you who are of the Jewish religion had a very happy 4****th**** night of Chanukah. I hope all of you who are neither of the above had a very happy December the 25****th****…consider this chapter my gift to you for Christmas, Chanukah or December 25****th****.**

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It was dark again. Dark and silent. The two seemed to walk hand in hand. I had decided while sitting in my cell that if silence this deafening had a color, it would be black to make the darkness more unbearable. I also had never known silence could be so loud. The lack of noise was louder than any screaming I had ever heard.

There was tears trickling down my face over fresh tearstains, but I wasn't sure why. There was a pain between my upper thighs and lower abdomen that I couldn't remember getting. My wrists were bruised like somebody had grabbed them and held on to them too hard for too long. And what was worse, these pains and bruises-I not only had no memory to associate with them, but I also felt like I was missing an element of my past.

I felt like I should be able to remember something that happened long ago in addition to what had just happened. But I could remember neither. I only remembered the darkness. The blackest darkness. And the silence so deafening it was black also. So dark…too dark. So black…too black.

So alone…too alone.

That's when I heard a whisper in the dark. It was indistinct, but broke through the silence, a small ray of light in the blackest silence.

"Mary Alice." It whispered.

I whipped my head around, searching in vain for the source of the noise. I couldn't even tell in which direction the door to my dark, dank cell was.

There it was again. The pale, blonde face in my mind's eye. Only a flash and he was gone again. I had had another "episode" as my parents had taken to calling them. I drew my knees in and hugged them tightly to my chest.

"_Alice" my younger sister was whispering in my ear. "Alice, it's Christmas."_

_I could hear the excitement in her voice as I rolled over and tugged the bed covers over my head._

"_It's too early _petit bebe (**AN: French for little one**)_. Go back to sleep."_

"_But Santa must have come and left us presents. Come on Alice!"_

_My sister found my hand under the covers and was tugging at it now. I groaned in submission to her request and threw the bedcovers to one side while pulling her up onto my bed in one fluid motion. I was ten and she was only four. It was like lifting a sack of flour. Once she was on my bed I began tickling her playfully until she started screaming. We both were giggling on my bed when my mother, tying the sash to her dressing gown came into the room. _

"_Presents girls!" She cried, smiling. I wished my mother still loved me. My sister Cynthia squealed and ran for the door and my mother sidestepped her just in time. I smiled at my mother and she smiled back at me._

I missed my little sister. My _petit bebe. _My Cynthia. I wondered if she missed me. She hadn't even been awake when they had carted me away at four in the morning. How had my mother and father explained that to her. I pictured my fourteen year old sister crying at my grave, as my empty coffin was lowered into the ground, my mother and father standing at her side appearing brave and stoic as they didn't even shed a tear at their daughter's funeral. I could still see my mother's face as they drove me away from our home. He blue-gray eyes like steel as she watched them cart her firstborn off to an insane asylum, her pride meaning more to her than her morality.

The whispering didn't continue. It stopped. I was alone in my black silence again.

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I hope you all had a splendid holiday. That is all from me for tonight.

**REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**


	4. Three: Anywhere but here

**DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN **_**TWILIGHT **_**ARE PROPERTY OF THE GREAT AND WONDERFUL STEPHENIE MEYER, AS IS THE OUTLINE OF THIS STORY. The specific storyline as well as any characters I have come up with are mine.**

**A/N: It's officially 2009…the year of Twilight and BD is over…LET THE YEAR OF NEW MOON BEGIN!!!!!!!!**

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I now seemed to live in a world that alternated in color. Like the real world, it went from light to dark. White to black. Short, horrifying days which gave way to long, more extended, terrifying nights, with nothing but the chorus of screams, the squeaking of the rats and my own whimpering as a lullaby for sleep.

It was white now. My hellion sentence to daytime. I was strapped in the chair – a position that genuinely frightened me for reasons passing my understanding. My eyes had adjusted to the light and I was looking straight forward, as the bonds on the chair forced me to do. I looked into the face of the doctor, an action which sent shivers down my spine. I wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was the abhorrent smile that lurked on his ugly face which caused my discomfort.

But in my mind, I knew that wasn't it. It wasn't that simple. I wasn't sure why I actually was afraid, but I felt in my gut that it went deeper than the smirk this man wore as he asked me mundane questions and tortured my mind until I couldn't even scream for the pain of it all.

Then I was back in my black night. I knew I had been in the light when I returned. But that is all. I couldn't recall what had happened there. I couldn't recall the cause for all the pain I felt in my still tingling limbs.

This odd pattern of things happening that I couldn't remember happened for 6 months the whispering I had heard started again. I could tell how long it had been by how long my regrowing hair had become. What was worse, was that my past was disappearing as well. I was starting to lose myself.

I feared that one day I would wake up and no longer remember who I was.

"Alice," the voice in the darkness whispered, seductively.

It was a male voice. Strong, yet kind. I hadn't expected it to be male. The only male I had had contact with in the awful place was – I couldn't remember…but I had had contact with a male somewhere here. Maybe it was this male whispering now – I had no way of knowing for sure.

"_Alice_", it whispered again.

"_Alice", I heard as I lay in my bed, unable to sleep as I sweated in the humid, Biloxi summer heat. It was the middle of July and seemed to be as hot and sticky at night as it was during the day. At least I didn't have to wear as many clothes during the day._

_I rolled over and gazed at my window and saw him sitting on the tree limb that grew right outside it. _

"_Matthew!" I hissed when I saw him, throwing a quick glance to my door to make sure it was securely shut so that no wandering residents of my house could happen by and see my – well, no one knew it, but it was true all the same – my fiancé on a tree limb outside my bedroom while I was less than appropriately attired. Which is why my next move was to put on my dressing gown, which clung to my body and made me entirely uncomfortable. But I had been raised as a proveyer of propriety. _

"_Matthew! Have you lost your mind with the heat? What would Mother and Daddy say if they knew you were here?!"_

"_I don't care, Alice. It's not fair that they have you locked up because you had an episode at that party. I had to see you. I love you too much to not see you every day." And with that he climbed into my open window and came straight to me, kissing me._

Matthew had never thought I was crazy. Matthew thought that I went away for a while and then came back to the world he lived in. Which, in essence, is what happens to me. He would probably be appalled to know I was locked in this place. I wondered if he had cried at my funeral.

"_I love you so much." He said as he held me in his arms._

"_I love you too." I replied, knowing it was true with every fiber of my being._

"_Then forget all of this. Come with me."_

"_Come with you? Where?"_

"_Anywhere. Everywhere. Anywhere but here. Think about it Alice. We could hop on a train tonight and by morning we would be so far away they would never find us again. We could disappear in a big city like Chicago or Philadelphia or New York. What do you say?"_

"_I think that sounds wonderful Matthew. I have always wanted to go to Philadelphia. But we would never be allowed to come home. And with that knowledge, we would never make it out of the county."_

_He kissed my head and nodded. "One day Alice. One day we will get out of here and go to Philadelphia."_

I hope he went ahead without me. I hope he continued to live his life even though I was gone.

The voice whispered again, but I knew it wasn't Matthew. And I couldn't picture my Matthew's face either.

Everytime I tried, a pale, blonde man came into view instead.

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**I wish many things for 2009. But mostly I wish for you to review this chapter and let me know what you thought.**

**A safe and joyous 2009 to you all!**


	5. Four: Savior

**DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN **_**TWILIGHT **_**ARE PROPERTY OF THE GREAT AND WONDERFUL STEPHENIE MEYER, AS IS THE OUTLINE OF THIS STORY. The specific storyline as well as any characters I have come up with are mine.**

**A/N: While I am waiting for my application to join the Twilight RPG to be approved, I am going write for you.**

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I had been asleep, a rarity for me these days. The whispering had continued for several days now, and occasionally I thought it was coming from the bars at the window high up the outside wall of my cell. But that couldn't be possible. I was several hundred feet up.

The feeling of cold stone against my warm cheek felt good. It made my fever more tolerable. I had felt as though I had had the flu for the past week or so. I wasn't exactly sure how long it had been. Time sort of ran together in this prison.

Since discovering I was sick, I hadn't been taken out of this stone square. The food has not improved in quality. If anything, it had gotten worse. I feared I would die here much sooner than I ever expected to. I would never see Matthew or Cynthia again, people in my mind who were fading rapidly. I could barely grasp hold of their faces anymore, let alone still find their names. I also feared I would never find the identity of the pale, blonde face I kept seeing.

But the jingling of keys is what woke me. I thought at first I was still delirious. It couldn't possibly be time for me to be fed. I slowly sat up, my head spinning slightly, and back up to the closest wall, hugging my knees to my chest. The cool stone felt good on my back through my thin gown, which clung to me with the sweat from my fever breaking.

The metal door swung open with a long squeak and I blinked rapidly and repeatedly as my eyes attempted to adjust to the sudden influx of light in my cell. I could make out the vague shape of a man in the doorway and knew at once it was not a doctor. He didn't have on the lab coat to which I had become accustomed to seeing to my visitors of the cell.

"Alice," he whispered, and I immediately recognized the voice as the one I had been hearing for months. I thought maybe he had come to save me. That is what I had hoped at least. Little did I know that I hoped in vain.

He moved slowly toward me, sauntering. I slinked further back into the wall, wishing I could retreat into it. He slowly crouched in front of me a smile spreading gently on his beautiful face. He reached out and brushed a hair behind my ear. It was barely long enough to reach and stay in place. It had been clinging to my face with sweat.

His own hair was pulled back in a pony tail. It was long and blonde and his face was pale, but this was not the man I had been seeing in my head for months now. His face was not as kind, even behind his grin.

As his hand moved down my face and took hold of my neck, something about his grin became menacing and I was more terrified than I had ever been before. He bent his head to my neck, still smiling as he did and I couldn't see his face anymore as his mouth approached my neck.

I found myself hoping against all hope that someone would walk by and see this man in my cell. A doctor, a janitor, anyone at all.

As I hoped, faster than anything I could have possibly imagined, the man had been propelled away from me by something else flying through the air. The collision of these two objects sounded as two large stones . Part of the wall fell away where the blonde man impacted the wall. He fell to the ground, his body lifeless.

The second object now came into view. I saw it to be another man, this one much older than the other. His face was all kindness and I felt the need to trust him.

"We must get out of here Miss Mary Alice. Before he reawakens."

Without another word, or even a nod of agreement from me, he scooped me up into his arms as though I was feather-light and carried me out of the cell. He glanced in both directions of the empty hallway before running with me at an inhuman speed.

I thought for sure I must still be dreaming the delusional dreams of a flu-ridden woman. I closed my eyes and laid my cheek against his chest, it feeling as cold and as hard as the stone walls of my cell.

The cool night air suddenly surrounded me and I opened my eyes to find myself outside in a starless night. I looked behind the man, whose running had slowed a bit, to see the stone fortress that had been my prison several yards behind us. As I gazed at it a ferocious growl ripped through the night and I saw one of the walls fall away and a figure jump from its depths to the ground below. It shook with his impact and the old man stopped running when that happened.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Then he set me down on the dewy grass on the outskirts of a forest. I hugged my knees to myself once again as he crouched to my level. I could feel myself trembling, unable to still myself.

"I am so sorry for this Mary Alice." He whispered in my ear before placing his hands on me, one on my shoulder and the other on my face, exposing my neck.

The thing I remember before blinding pain is how good his cold breath felt on my neck and he leaned in and bit me.

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**YAY!!! Another chapter!!! Guess what?! It's almost my birthday. And you know what would be extra special? If you reviewed. It would be like a birthday present to me!**


	6. Five: Conquest

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DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN _**TWILIGHT **_**ARE PROPERTY OF THE GREAT AND WONDERFUL STEPHENIE MEYER, AS IS THE OUTLINE OF THIS STORY. The specific storyline as well as any characters I have come up with are mine.**

**A/N: Yay!! A new chapter during the semester…don't expect this to happen that often. However, I do want to preface this chapter by saying I had no intention of this story being anything but Alice's POV. However, after writing the last chapter I realized you all will need both James and Alice's Savior's POV for those actions to make any sense whatsoever. So here it is: (sidenote to the A/N: James POV is going to go a little further than Alice's did…obviously because James was conscious through the whole thing, whereas Alice has blacked out.)**

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**JAMES POV**

It was her scent that drew me to her. I recognized it from the first time I ever saw her. She wouldn't ever remember that. She hadn't been more than 10 years old. She and two adults whom I could only assume were her parents were walking through the market square of downtown New Orleans in the French corridor. I could tell that they weren't from around there, taking in all the sights like they were tourists.

As soon as that little girl walked by in that pale yellow frock, a burning thirst like none I had ever experience erupted in my throat. I had to have her. But I knew that killing her in the crowded square would only bring about my destruction. My kind had laws about exposure.

I tried to discreetly follow her and her family, hoping they would cut through some dark alley on their back to wherever they were staying and becoming the unfortunate victims of a robbery gone awry.

But they never did. Or at least, if they did, I never knew it. I lost them in a throng of people on Bourbon Street. It killed me that I had had my prey so closely in my grasp and she had slipped through my fingers. Her blood had smelled so appetizing.

When I ran across that scent again, it was many years later, though to someone with eternity before them, it seemed only days. I was walking through the woods that were part of the property of some plantation in Biloxi, Mississippi and I smelled her. Faintly, traces of her. But I recognized the smell immediately. I couldn't find her scent strong anywhere in the town though. So I did some digging. And that's what led me to that asylum.

I worried that I would never find her. I would always sneak in through the same back door. It was always left ajar by one of the custodial staff that would sneak out of it to have a smoke. I would wander the dark halls by night whispering my prey's name, waiting for a response.

The night I found her, her scent was so potent and I was so thirsty I almost couldn't bear it. But after years of searching, I was going to enjoy my conquest.

The keys jingled in my hands as I fumbled to try and find the one that unlocked her door. The metal door swung open with a long squeak and my prey began to blink rapidly and repeatedly as her pitiful human eyes attempted to adjust to the sudden influx of light in her cell. She sat curled against one of the stone walls, hugging her knees to her chest. Her white cotton gown was soaked through with sweat and there was a light sheen on her face. I could tell she was sick. Luckily for her, it would all be over soon.

"Alice," I whispered as I had been in the past months. I saw a brief flash of hope in her features. Maybe she thought I had come to save her.

I moved slowly toward her, sauntering in my victory of finding her. She slinked further back into the wall on my approach. I chuckled to myself. _Silly humans. Always afraid when it is much too late._

I slowly crouched in front of her, a smile involuntarily spreading gently on my face. I reached out and brushed a hair that clung to her face with the sweat behind her ear.

As my hand moved down her face and took hold of her neck, I could see the fear in her features growing. I fed off this fear as much as the blood of my victims. I bent my head to her neck, still smiling.

Right as I was about to taste my long awaited conquest, I was propelled away from her by something else flying through the air. The collision sounded as two large stones, a sound I knew all too well. Another of my kind was intervening. I would not allow him to claim my prize. However, when I hit the wall, my body fell to the ground and I momentarily lost consciousness.

It was only seconds before I shook off the impact. But when I glanced around the cell, I saw it was now empty and that my prey was gone. I took a deep breath and sensed her smell leaving the building. I let a ferocious growl ripped through the night as I hit the already damaged wall, knocking the rest of it away and jumping to the ground below, which shook with my impact.

I ran to the forest surrounding the asylum, following the girl's scent. But when I got within view, I saw the old man crouched over the girl, placing his mouth to her neck, biting her.

I let another growl escape my chest as I charged the old man, knocking him from her. I pinned him to the ground about two yards from her lifeless body and destroyed him in my vengeance. He had taken my long searched prey from me. I would take his life.

I built a small fire on the outskirts of the woods and burned the pieces of the man. After I did this, I approached the body of my would-be victim. It was no longer lifeless, but writhing in pain. The old man hadn't killed her.

He had made her like us.

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**I have decided in an effort to appease my readers and also alleviate some of the stress in my life that I will update my stories once a week. That is not to say that each story will be updated once a week, just that one of them will be each week. And I hope to do so on a cycle, so that each gets equal attention. **

**We'll see if it works. But until then, you asked for this POV, so review and tell me what you think!**


	7. Six: Monster

**DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN **_**TWILIGHT **_**ARE PROPERTY OF THE GREAT AND WONDERFUL STEPHENIE MEYER, AS IS THE OUTLINE OF THIS STORY. The specific storyline as well as any characters I have come up with are mine.**

**TA-DA!!! I'm BACK!!!!!! Rejoice, I dare you all to… I'm sorry for my extended absence, but updating during the semester is nearly impossible. You'll have to forgive me and I will try to make up for it during the summer. There are 7 weeks left in my summer and I plan to make the most of them. And here we go…**

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The howl of a wolf awoke me. I stirred, realizing I hadn't actually been asleep. As I looked around myself I was surround by lush vegetation, but I didn't know where I was.

It took me a moment, but I also realized I didn't know who I was. How had I gotten here? How long had I been here? And why was I in a hospital gown.

I stumbled out of the forest and found a road. I looked behind me and there was a large fortress of a building and in the faintness of the night, I thought I could hear screaming.

I walked along the road where the gravel met the grass, one foot in front of the other as if I were walking a tight-rope and kept seeing odd flashes of things. A road-sign I couldn't quite read, a crowded street, a diner, a counter, a pale, blonde man-just flashes that made as much sense as anything right now. Suddenly I heard the whirring of a motor and looked behind me to see a car. It was coming to a stop on the side of the road just before me.

"Are you all right honey?" A male voice called from within the car.

That was an excellent question. Suddenly, there was a fire in the back of my throat. I was suddenly dying of thirst.

"Honey?" the southern twang called again.

"Could I get a ride sir?" My own voice surprise me, soprano bells tinkling in the night.

"Of course honey. Where are you headed?"

That was an excellent question as well. Where was I going? All I could think about was the insatiable thirst. Then suddenly someone spoke to me, but I knew it was only in my mind. "_One day we will get out of here and go to Philadelphia." _Was someone waiting for me in Philadelphia? Would they be able to help me solve this mystery?

"Philadelphia." I said aloud, confidently.

"Well get in, honey, I can take you as far as the next town and then you can get a train ticket or something. And we'll see if we can't get you some clothes. My wife should be able to help you out."

I smiled, but was so thirsty it almost hurt. I walked toward the car.

"What's your name sugar?"

I had been dreading this question. As I walked to the car I noticed the bracelet on my right wrist. Most of the writing on it was smeared, but I could make out one word. _Alice_.

"Alice."

"Well, then, Alice. Let's get you out of the dark and off the streets." The car door suddenly opened for me and I got in, sinking into the bench as if I weighed more than I would think I did being as small as I was.

We began driving again and with the windows down the breeze within the car smelled so fragrant and seemed to be the satisfaction of my thirst. I turned and looked at the man who was driving and the smell got stronger. He was what I was craving. I could hear his pulse and with each thud of his heart the smell pulsated as well. I wanted his blood. His blood would satisfy this thirst.

I suddenly felt ill at the thought of killing this man.

"Pull over." I said suddenly.

"What?"

"Pull over. I am going to be sick."

He slowed down and pulled off the road, switching off the car's motor.

"Just take deep breaths for a moment, it will pass. Happens to my youngest daughter all the time."

I smiled. This man was so nice. But breathing only made the feeling worse. At that moment the wind blew through the car, blowing his scent on me. I couldn't control it anymore.

"I'm so sorry about this." I mumbled before I moved at lightning speed on top of him.

"Now, miss, please-I'm married."

I smiled seductively at him before I bent my head down to his neck and bit. His screams came and I moved quicker than I could have thought possible to cover his mouth with my hand. His blood tasted so good and the thirst was subsiding. When I was finished, his pale, lifeless face pained me to look at. I got off of him and opened my side door. I scrambled out of the car and fell to my knees, seeing his blood on my tattered gown. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and there was his blood too. I was frightened. I screamed.

What kind of monster had I become?

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**And that's that. A good return? I need to hear your opinions so REVIEW! Let me know if I am welcomed back or not…**


	8. Seven: A Foxy Meal

**DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN **_**TWILIGHT **_**ARE PROPERTY OF THE GREAT AND WONDERFUL STEPHENIE MEYER, AS IS THE OUTLINE OF THIS STORY. The specific storyline as well as any characters I have come up with are mine.**

**A/N: Thank you to those of who reviewed last chapter. It was nice to know you hadn't given up on me. To those who didn't review-SHAME!!!! I have given you another chance-don't let me down!**

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I was back to tight-rope walking. I had sat in that automobile and stared at the gauges and things and realized that if I had ever known how to work one of these, I didn't now. That, and sitting in that car only conjured up memories of that nice man who had become my victim. So I walked.

No other automobiles passed by me and that was fine with me. That nagging, burning thirst in the back of my throat had returned and no one else needed to become my victim. I didn't _want _to be a monster.

My path was illuminated by the full moon above me and I stared intently at it as I walked, trying to remember anything I could. Anything and everything. But there was nothing.

Suddenly, the moon disappeared.

_I was in a diner and a beautiful, pale stranger hesitantly took my outstretched hand and then smiled as my petite fingers laced with him. The scene faded. We were suddenly running together, gliding gracefully through the woods. But we weren't just running. I could sense another being and we were tracking it, coming upon it and then, there it was. A deer sitting in a calm meadow. There was no birdsong though, as if no birds were there. The beast didn't hear us coming as we pounced upon it and began to feed._

I was back staring at the moon. I didn't want to be a monster. But what if I didn't have to be a monster. I looked back in the direction of the scene I had left behind and due to the curve of the road, I could no longer see what I had left behind. That could be prevented? I could be good? I could be safe for people?

I heard a movement in the trees that lined the road I was on. My hearing was so acute, I heard the twigs snap under its foot falls. It probably thought it was safe in this cover of darkness, probably unaware of predators like myself out in the woods making them unsafe at night.

I glided swiftly, following all 5 of my senses that seemed so much keener than they ever could have been when I was human. Because I realized now, though I didn't know what I had become, I knew I was no longer human.

I could smell it. I was upon him. When I came to the scent, I was met with a small, ginger fox, who looked up at me with small, eyes. I didn't let this cunning creature look for long though.

He quickly sated my thirst and I realized that this would work. That I didn't have to be a monster.

That I might just be okay.

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**Okay, so this was really, really, short-but this was all I needed to happen! I promise that tomorrow I will get to Philadelphia and it will pick up. But I thought before I got Alice to a populated city I needed for her to figure out she didn't have to kill PEOPLE.**

**A note on her first "vegetarian" meal: I decided with some of my friends a long time ago that Alice would like fox best because it was small, ferocious and cunning, just like her. **

**Also-be sure to check my profile for a link to my new blog where you will receive updates on when and what I am writing. It's a great way for you to keep up with what is going on!!!**

**Oh! AND REVIEW!!!!**


	9. Eight: Normal?

**DISCLAIMER: ALL CHARACTERS THAT APPEAR IN **_**TWILIGHT **_**ARE PROPERTY OF THE GREAT AND WONDERFUL STEPHENIE MEYER, AS IS THE OUTLINE OF THIS STORY. The specific storyline as well as any characters I have come up with are mine.**

**A/N: Thank you to those of who reviewed last chapter. Again, shame to those who didn't. Also, shame to those who haven't checked out the blog…and link is in my profile.**

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I had arrived in Philadelphia with nothing. I had thought I might perish, or whatever it is I do now, with nothing and no one to care I was gone. But that was before I had stumbled into the city, and into the first thing I saw.

Not quite on the outskirts of town, but not in downtown either was a quaint brick building with the most gorgeous dresses in the windows. It was the bright colors and elegant designs that led me into _Lila's_, an elegant dress boutique with the pretty script lettering on the sign and the lily under the name.

I was captivated by all the gowns on the mannequins, so engrossed that I failed to notice the stares my appearance was eliciting from the other ladies in the shop. It wasn't until the shop's proprietor inquired after me that I even noticed the others in the store.

"May I help you dear?" The kind old woman, whom I later discovered was _the _Lila, asked me with a smile in her voice and on her face.

I looked around myself. "I was just admiring the beautiful dresses you have." I leaned into the woman, who smelled of perfume and silk, and whispered. "I think I may need a new one." Then I smiled.

She chuckled and appraised my appearance. "Possibly" she replied with a wry grin.

She snapped her fingers and a young red-headed girl of no more than 16 in a beautiful aqua number that played off her blue eyes.

"This is Ginny, my assistant and my granddaughter. Ginny, go on into the back and get that violet number we finished this morning. I think it would look perfect with her dark hair and eyes. My, my, dear, I have never seen eyes as black as yours."

I smiled, unsure of the compliment but thankful for this stranger's kindness. Ginny left and soon returned with the dress and I could see at once how gorgeous it would be. I followed her and Lila to the curtained dressing area and put on the silk and lace concoction, emerging from behind the ruby curtain to be met with a full length mirror. I stopped dead.

I had not yet seen myself and I realized why the people stared. I was beautiful, gorgeous in a ghastly kind of way. My skin was pale and my eyes and hair were dark. But the dress, the dress was marvelous beyond words.

While I was admiring myself in the mirror, the curtain drew back on the area next to mine and a blonde woman emerged in a golden dress that did nothing for her hair or skin tone. While she examined herself in the mirror, I turned to her before I could stop myself.

"No, no, no. Miss, do yourself a favor and get something in a navy blue. It will play up your eyes and your hair. The boys will go wild." She blushed when I said this but nodded her head graciously and then disappeared back into the dressing area.

"You have a knack for this, I would say." I heard Lila say. Suddenly, I saw myself, a proper lady helping other ladies be fitted for beautiful gowns and selling the ones in the windows, designing gowns to be made. Then I was back.

"I said, do you have a job deary?" Lila said, evidently repeating herself though I hadn't heard her the first time.

"No. As a matter of fact, I am quite new in town and I am afraid I don't have much of anything," I turned to look at myself longingly in the mirror again "including the money to buy this beautiful dress."

"I'll make you a deal," Lila said, a smile brewing across her face, "Ginny's parents are taking her to Europe for the summer and she is leaving next week. You could take her place. You could help me out. I would pay you $5 a month. Plus, there is an apartment over this shop I haven't lived in since before I married my husband, Joseph and my parents moved into his house with us. I could let you stay there. It would give me a piece of mind to know that someone was living over the shop when it was closed."

"I'm afraid I don't have the attire to be a lady ma'am."

"Luckily for you, I own a dress shop. My ladies wear only the finest to sell the finest."

That was a month ago. Lila's kindest began almost immediately, giving me the beautiful violet dress and 3 others that I looked stunning in, plus a jacket/skirt set and several matching hats.. Then she took me up to the apartment that was nothing more than a small kitchen, bathroom and a large room with a bed in one corner of one end and a seating area in the other end, with a screen in between. But to me, it was perfect. It was a place to be that was mine. But as I had walked for days without sleep, I got the feeling I would not require the bed, and I doubted I would be doing much cooking.

So far, I had been right in that assessment. The bed was never used except to lay out my dresses so they would not wrinkle and the kitchen might as well not be there. Every day, after Lila closed the shop and left me for the evening, I would go out beyond the city limits of Philadelphia and hunt. I wasn't sure how much I needed to sustain myself, but I knew that every day was a good precaution since I worked with people all day. I would die if I got blood all over those beautiful gowns we created.

During my half-hour lunch breaks, I would go to various diners within Philadelphia, looking for the one and the man from my visions, the man whose face I kept seeing. I hadn't found him yet, but I knew I would eventually. So I waited. And enjoyed my life until then.

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**Well, that would explain Alice's clothing obsession, wouldn't it???**

**All the names that appeared in this chapter appeared on the top 1000 baby names of the decade they were born in. If you want to read about something else I found while doing this research, check out my blog—the link is in my profile. **

**And REVIEW!!!!!!**


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